


This Isn’t a Fairy Tale

by MissMorwen



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Captain America (Comics), Marvel 616, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Department X, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Memory Alteration, Red Room (Marvel), Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:40:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25528354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMorwen/pseuds/MissMorwen
Summary: This isn’t a fairy tale, but it starts like one: once upon a time, a soldier met a spy and they fell in love.***********An exploration of Bucky and Natasha's relationship over the yearsor a fix-it fic since Marvel can't get their shit together.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 39
Kudos: 99
Collections: superassassins in love





	1. Chapter 1

This isn’t a fairy tale, but it starts like one: once upon a time, a soldier met a spy and they fell in love.

Natalia has heard of the Soldier before she meets him. He is dangerous, the rumors tell her. Faster than most men, stronger, too, and not just because of that metal arm of his. What they don’t tell her is that he is beautiful. That when he walks, he moves like a big cat – with purpose and deadly intent. What they don’t tell her is that his eyes burn with a fire strong enough to consume if she lets it. He is dangerous, but not the way the rumors meant. He is dangerous, but oh, how she welcomes the danger.

\---

The Soldier becomes Natalia’s teacher. She is a deadly thing already, both as a spy and an assassin, but her masters want her to be deadlier still. They don’t realize until it is too late that the Soldier will teach her more than how to become a better killer. They don’t realize that Natalia will teach him in return.

He works her harder than any of her other teachers ever has, expects more of her, too. He teaches her patience before the kill, how to stay so still watchful eyes will simply skip over her while she waits to strike. He teaches her how to speak with the drawl of their enemies. And he reminds her that love is much more than a weakness to exploit. In return, she teaches him that appearances are deceptive, that death can take on many forms, and she reminds him that he is a human being, not just a weapon to be used.

When she kisses him (and make no mistake, it is she who kisses him first), it is the first time in a long while Natalia thinks she has made a fatal mistake. In the empty gym where her body won’t be discovered till the next day, she corners him and presses her lips to his. His body goes rigid and she reminds herself all the ways he could kill her and not get punished for it. But then he relaxes, and he shows her just how gentle he can be when he touches the side of her face with his metal hand and kisses her back.

\---

The next time they touch outside the sparring ring, it is because the Soldier touches her first. They are on a mission in a satellite state with foolish ideas of independence. They aren’t there to stop the revolution, they are simply to destabilize the upstarts before the military moves in.

On their way back to the hotel near the outskirts of the city, the fingers of his right hand brush the back of her left. It isn’t an accident. It can’t be. Nothing he ever does is by accident; it is part of why Natalia admires him so. She looks sideways at him, at eyes as sharp as her favorite knife. His mouth curls up in a way that speaks of mischief, a rebellion amid a revolution. This is another reason why she admires him. Like her, he knows that rules are meant to be broken.

Back at the hotel, after they have checked for hidden ears or eyes, the Soldier says, “Another successful mission.”

The thing is that the Soldier is as deliberate with his words as he is with his gestures. The thing is that Natalia has learned long ago to listen closely to what he says to hear the things he doesn’t say.

“It was,” she answers, waiting for a clue to where he might want to take this conversation.

“We ought to celebrate a successful mission.” His hands are steady as he strips off his black gloves and heavy winter coat, but his tongue betrays him, darting out to lick dry lips.

It is a sort of proposal. What he proposes (what she initiated back in the empty gym) is against the rules. It is dangerous, likely to get them punished. She knows this, and she yet smiles.

\---

Morning finds them tangled together after a night of little sleep. The Soldier must have woken first because when Natalia opens her eyes, she finds him looking at her, his eyes clearer than she has ever seen them.

She traces a finger along the line of his jaw, the curve of his lips. “Natalia,” she tells him before she can regret it. “My name is Natalia Alianovna Romanova.” No one has used it since she entered the Red Room, not even after she graduated and should have been granted the boon of personhood. There have been a few times where she has almost forgotten it, but she is a stubborn one. What little she owns she holds on to.

“Natalia,” he repeats, slowly, tasting the sound of it. He smiles, kisses the top of her head, and pulls her closer.

She burrows against his wide chest, feeling the beat of his heart inside it. Her own heart beats faster, partly at the thought of having given the Soldier something of importance, partly at the thought of the punishment that awaits them. Because punishment must follow such a transgression as this. They are weapons to be used, they aren’t supposed to know love.

\---

The time they have together can be counted in weeks, months at best, but they make good use of it.

When they are found out (and make no mistake, nothing this rebellious could remain hidden for long), their masters have no choice but to punish them both for it. They take away the parts that make the Soldier who he is and put him on ice to make sure he won’t reclaim them again. But they don’t stop with him. Before they take away Natalia’s memories, too, they tell her that she belongs to another, that her heart wasn’t his to steal. They tell her a great many lies, but she knows them for what they are.

Stole her heart? Never. She gave it to him freely.

Natalia mourns (for him, for what they could have become together), she buries herself in her work until missing him becomes a scar instead of an open wound, and finally she leaves without looking back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bucky and Natasha meet again and they are free to make their own decisions about who to love.

This isn't a fairy tale, but it looks like one: once upon a time, a soldier slept in the ice while a spy trudged through the decades, day by bloody day. Except he isn’t sleeping. Saying the Soldier sleeps implies rest, it implies dreams. There’s no rest for him, not in the ice and not out of it, only nightmares and pain.

\---

Eventually, he escapes the ice.

An enemy (an old friend? A brother?) says to him, “Remember who you are.”

And he does.

With the newfound memories comes a name. With them comes a past and family and friends. With them comes the technicolor recollection of all the lives he took, both as a soldier and as the Soldier. The difference is that he killed as a soldier, but he murdered as the Soldier and he sees every death replayed again and again before his eyes and he hears the screams of the dying echoing in his ears and has the smell of blood and vomit and piss and—

This is the trajectory of Bucky’s life: things can always get worse.

Bucky runs.

He runs, and he runs until he can’t run anymore. There is no escaping his own memories. Not by running. No one can run that far. So, he makes his way back to the country he was born in, and the miracle is this: his Natalia is there, too. Decades have passed since he saw her last, but they have left no marks on her. Her eyes are harder, and her smile takes more coaxing to show itself, but she is alive, and she is herself still. (It makes it a little easier for Bucky to accept that the man he once called his brother is dead. A little easier, but not much.)

Natalia guides him as he once guided her. Patient and steady and levelheaded. (Everything he isn’t. Not yet, not now.) She expects nothing in return, but he gives her everything she asks for and more.

He reaches for her then. The way he reached for her back when all he knew was the weight of a gun in his hand, the sound of knives slicing through flesh, and the smell of blood spilled on concrete. He reaches for her, and she goes to him without hesitation, without fear.

She sees him for what he is, all the things he has done, good and bad. But still, she goes to him.

If there is a heaven, and Bucky isn’t as sure of that as he used to be, it is in Natalia’s arms. If he has a home, it is with her.

\---

There is peace to be found when he is with her. The only peace he has known in a long while. The screams of the long-dead are drowned out by the sound of her steady breath while she sleeps next to him, the ghosts slink away when she opens her eyes and smiles at him.

The tips of her fingers are calloused, worn hard by the years, but the touch is soft as Natalia traces the line of his brow and the shell of his ear. “My love,” she says, and her voice is dry tinder, kindling in the firepit. “Light of my light. You need to stop watching me when I sleep.”

Bucky pulls her in close to wipe away her smirk with a kiss, marveling (as always) at how readily she comes to him. She is warm and soft with sleep and he wraps himself around her, sheltering her from the bright light of the rising sun, trapping her there when her smirk turns into a snicker. He swallows her laughter when she won’t stop snickering and her breath when it quickens.

There is nothing he will not do to make her smile. There is nothing he will not give her when she asks for it.

“Never,” he says, and his voice is the spark that starts the fire.

They move together as one. Always have. Always will. They move together and her legs wrap around his waist with crushing strength to guide him inside. They move together and he is whole again.

\---

But their happiness doesn’t last forever. It can’t last forever. Not with the enemies they’ve made along the way. A man from Bucky’s past wounds him in a way no one else has been able to: he steals Natalia’s memories of their life together. Erases them with a steady hand and a jealous heart.

This is the trajectory of Bucky’s life: good things never last.

But (and this he is grateful for) Natalia is alive and herself still – even if she doesn’t remember him. She is alive and no one will ever hurt her again to get to him. She is alive and he is the one who is dead to her. Worse than dead. He never even existed.

Bucky does the only thing he can do: he shoulders the pain so that Natalia doesn’t have to. With the precision of a scalpel, he removes any remaining traces of himself from her life. Cuts away anything that will remind her of someone she is better off without.

The work is done in a few hours, then he’s gone. Cut loose.

\---

There are sharks, someone once told Bucky, sharks that must continue to swim or they’ll drown. All of their lives they must swim, day in and day out. If they stop swimming they sink to the bottom of the ocean and drown. Maybe, just maybe, he won’t drown if he keeps working. Maybe if he keeps working, he won’t notice the gaping wound where his heart used to be. Maybe if he watches over Natalia from afar and gives what help he can, he won’t feel so utterly lost. (It’s not enough, it’s never enough, but it is all he has left.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I swear I'm not just torturing you all for the hell of it. I'm a sucker for Soft BuckyNat (TM) and we'll get there eventually. Anyway, blame Brubaker and Marvel for creating such an awesome ship and then taking it away.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Natasha deals with the stranger she keeps running into and Bucky... Well, Bucky tries his best to play the hand he's been dealt. Spoiler alert: Soft BuckyNat (TM)

This isn’t a fairy tale; it doesn’t have a happy ending. Once upon a time, a soldier loved a spy, but she didn’t love him back. To love him, she would have to know him, she would have to remember him.

Natasha is her own woman; first, last, and always.

\---

Someone is following her. It takes Natasha a while to notice it, even longer to keep track of him once she is certain. He goes off-grid from time to time. Disappear so completely that not even her extensive network can track him down. The disappearances aren’t a surprise. The man was a myth in her old country and is a legend in her new one. Barnes is as at home in the shadows and the cold as she is.

He helps her from time to time and she supposes the attention should flatter her, but she works better alone. (It’s a lie. A lie she tells herself, knowing it’s a lie.) She has few friends, trust is rare for the likes of her, loyalty even rarer, but this man treats her like one. It is a curious thing to watch. She is not used to unflinching loyalty.

The most curious thing about it all is that it doesn’t scare her. It should, but it doesn’t.

He owes her nothing, but when she asks for something, he gives it to her without questions, without hesitation. It becomes a game of sorts. She asks for help or favors at first because she needs it, then when she finds that Barnes will not, cannot, refuse her, she asks for other things.

Take care of her cat (he has one of his own and can be trusted around animals.)

Pick up food when she is hungry.

Stay when she doesn’t want to be alone.

Slowly, but steadily, it does the impossible: it fills the empty, hollow space in her chest.

\---

She is her own woman, and yet—

There are times when Natasha will reach blindly for something, someone, and be surprised by the emptiness of her hand. Times when she turns over in bed, expecting a warm body where there are only cold sheets. There are times when she wishes that—

No, wishes are useless. She obtains her goals because she works towards them, not because she wishes for them.

Having someone who gets her, is the point. Having someone who can see the blood on her hands and not flinch away when she reaches for them.

\---

They are wrapping up another mission, Barnes is piloting the jet back home while Natasha goes over the gathered intel, when her earpiece crackles to life.

“Got everything you needed?” Despite the initial static, his voice comes through crystal clear. He might as well be speaking right into her ear and not from fifteen feet away.

Déjà vu sinks its claws into her. An unwelcome stowaway on this otherwise perfectly executed mission. It has been happening more often lately, maybe old age is finally catching up with her. Natasha closes the laptop she’s been working on and gets up. She’s not running away; she’s just moving forward. “I did,” she says, then leaning against the curved wall a few paces behind his chair, “Thank you for the assist.”

“We make a good team,” he agrees, looking back at her with the grin that reminds her of old black and white photos from when he was a sidekick and not his own man.

She likes that smile. It makes her want to smile back. Few people do that these days. It comes with the territory. She has lived too long for it to be otherwise, has been betrayed too many times to trust easily or at all. She thinks she trusts Barnes, though. As much as she trusts anyone these days.

She says none of these things. Instead, she says, “We should celebrate a successful mission. I’ll buy us dinner.”

His smile turns crystalline, then splinters when he opens his mouth to speak, but his words refuse to spill. She can see them changing direction in his throat. Then he shuts his mouth so hard his teeth meet with a clack, and he turns away to stare at the open sky ahead.

There is ice in her stomach. A great lump of it and it doesn’t leave any room for her lungs to expand into when she sucks in a breath. “Bucky?” she says and is amazed at how calm her voice sounds.

“I’m sorry— I—” He clears his throat. “Raincheck? I have other plans.”

Natasha nods and lies by saying, “Sure. No problem,” because of the plea she hears in the first lie she has caught him telling.

Lies beget lies. Her lie is born from the pain she saw etched in his face, but his? Self-defense, pure and simple.

She can’t see his face, but she can read his posture. Read the way his head drops by a fraction of an inch and he breathes out all at once. She could live a thousand years, forget everything she’s ever known, and she would still be able to read him. She would still know him.

She would still feel his pain as acutely as he does when she hurts him without meaning to.

He has another name, she thinks. Different from the one that most other people use. “James,” she says. “I used to call you James.” The words escape her in a steady stream, steady as her nerves aren’t.

The breath he lets out this time isn’t a whimper, but it’s a close thing. His right hand shakes as he flips switches and presses a button labeled autopilot. He swivels his chair around to face her, but his eyes are downcast, dark holes lost in the shadow of his brow.

“You didn’t like the name Bucky, so you called me James.” His mouth twitches in something that could easily be mistaken for a smile if not for the deep grooves of pain. Deeper than they used to be. “Maybe in retaliation for me calling you Natalia when everyone else calls you Natasha.”

Déjà vu is back, but this time it is a lover’s embrace. Warmth runs from her scalp to her tailbone, wraps around her like a warm blanket, like a hug from a set of mismatched arms.

“I loved you?” It comes out as a question, though she didn’t mean it to. She falters. How can she explain what it feels like to miss something she can’t remember? How can she explain that she knows him without knowing him?

“You don’t owe me anything.” He says it with certainty. This alone he is sure of in this world of uncertainties.

“I loved you,” she says, and knows deep down in her bones it is true. True as the sky is blue. True as his aim. Knows that it is pointless to use the past tense.

James looks up at her then and nods, wordlessly.

She pushes away from the wall and steps closer to him. Slowly, the way she might approach a wounded animal or an armed bomb. Natasha turns the palms of her hands towards him in a show that they are empty of weapons, even though they both know that her words could do more damage to him than any weapon. “You love me.”

He nods again though he doesn’t have to. His eyes speak more clearly than any body language or words ever could. There is hope in them. Hope as fragile as a newborn chick. Hope she could squash with a single disapproving look.

It is a frightening thing to have such power over someone, yet she knows she could never use it against him. This blade has two points, and one of them point at her own heart.

James' stubble catches on her palm, bends when she shifts her hand to cup his jaw.

“Then maybe that dinner is long overdue.” Now she is the one to speak with certainty.

She doesn’t remember him, but her body does. Her feet remember how to step closer when he stands and reaches for her. Her hands remember the heat of his body when he is near. And her heart remembers the joy his company brings.

She has lived a long life. So what if she has lost a few memories? She can always make more. They can always make more together.

\---

After he has traced the lines of her face like a long-lost treasure map. And after they have kissed so fiercely that it feels like it has left a brand on her skin, they settle down in his chair, Natasha on his lap, James's arms wrapped around her, he says, “Now what?”

Her smile is as wide as the endless sky, as impossible to contain. “Now you land this thing, then we eat, and you tell me about everything I have forgotten.”

James brings her hand up, places it over his heart, and says, “Anything for you, Natalia,” with mischief in his eyes. Then he sobers and repeats, “Anything.”

Under her hand, inside his chest, his heart beats strong and fast. She feels it as acutely as if it were her own. And maybe it is hers, maybe it always will be.

\---

This isn’t a fairy tale; it doesn’t have a happy ending. It doesn’t have _any_ ending.

She says, “I think I love you, James Buchanan Barnes,” when she remembers him.

She says, “You always did impress me,” when she doesn’t.

The truth of it is this: they will always find their way back to each other.


End file.
